The Rogue: An ATC for Double Trouble
by Upeasterner
Summary: Nobody likes to think that their mother has desires – or as we kids say, gets horny. But as Mom looked up at the Captain, some kind of dawning realization seemed to spread across her face.
1. Chapter 1

It was incredible, feeling the boat slice confidently through waves. Captain Gregg stood proudly at the helm of our 30-foot 1959 Bristol Sloop, commanding 15-year-old Midshipman Muir. "Aye, lad, aye." My brother was ecstatic, lost in the heady feeling of the vessel responding effortlessly to the Captain's command. I watched through my telescope as shorebound friends and neighbors gawked at the site of Jonathan ostensibly crewing the vessel alone.

The sloop was expensive; Captain Gregg purchased it with his share of the substantial proceeds Mom made off his memoirs. She fumed at first, when he bullied Claymore into buying the "ship, blast it, ship" on his behalf. Mom always worried about the family budget. A quick tour of the Captain's new toy quickly changed her mind—the galley, beds and a fold-down salon table. She coquettishly asked for a 'private cruise" out to North Haven.

Now, that backwater island is 12 miles out. Martha simply rolled her eyes. She packed enough food for their inaugural 'sail' in case they decided to swing by Vinelhaven, another port with a school Schooner Bay whipped in basketball last year.

That was the last day Mom and the Captain were just, well, them. Happy, and besotted with one another. Mom's face was wind-burned and suntanned when they docked the next day in Schooner Bay. Her thin blonde hair was a mess but it was clear she was a goddess to her ghost. The Captain helped her carefully off the boat, invisibly willing the ship to stop bobbing in the waves. Mom giggled and rolled her eyes at the astounded lobstermen berthed next to "I'm a Writer."

That night they fought about a trip she'd scheduled the next day. The Captain wanted to drive to Boston with her to meet an editor who liked her books. Grandpa was going to be there. He was the one who set the whole thing up. The whole thing smelled suspicious to me and, to Jonathan. Grandpa hated the Captain from the moment Mom told them about him. What was she supposed to do? Trot out Claymore every time they drove to Maine? Grandma was beginning to hint broadly she'd like to buy a summer home just up the coast from us. I couldn't stand it. If she was going to be that close, I told Mom, it was time to confess about Claymore. Yuck. How could Grandma even think Jonathan and I would let our Mom date someone like that? Well, it turns out we were wrong. Better ugly, living Claymore than a specter, as Grandpa put it. He even told the Muirs. They were ready to go to court to take us kids away when Captain Gregg put an end to it all. Turns out there is more than one skeleton in both family closets, and the Captain found out where they are buried. Everyone backed down, and calmed down.

Except Grandpa. Grandpa Muir thought Captain Gregg was doing an excellent job with Jonathan. He really didn't want to think of his son's widow sleeping with anyone else anyway. Or producing other heirs or competition for Jonathan. Grandpa Williams was quiet about the matter. He bided his time – and waited.

So I was pretty sure that day that Grandpa was trying to hook Mom up with some really rich, cute guy whose father he golfed with.

Now Mom is only jealous of all of the Captain's dead girlfriends. The Captain was/is green with envy over every man she'd yet to meet – of any living suitor between the ages of 35 and 100.

That night, the living suitors beat the dead girlfriends. "If after yesterday you think I would ever, even think –" That's as much as I heard before the Captain hurriedly bid the door slam right in my face. I secretly thought the Captain was a real dolt if he thought mom was even the teeniest bit interested in any rich widower from New York. Nonetheless, the comment about whatever it was they did yesterday intrigued both Jonathan and me as we hung out on the beach, smoking behind the rocks.

The next morning, Mom emerged from the master cabin dressed to kill in a smart, custom-tailored black pantsuit with matching black briefcase. She was exactly the same age as the Captain was when he died – 44 – but she still passed for a woman in her 30s. Mom's hair was still impossibly blonde. No grays. The shampoo she used smelled wonderful, too. Everything about her reeked of class and good breeding. She was the women's lib poster woman, even if she was 20 years too old.

My surrogate father, Captain Daniel Jealous Gregg, glowered from the widow's walk as she pulled away in the new convertible she'd bought – her one vice. I know, I watched from the road after she pressed $50 into my palm before leaving. I tucked the money hurriedly into my pocket and scampered for the house.

As I walked through the door, the nasty old telephone Mom refused to replace rang loudly in the foyer. Jonathan grabbed for it – girls, at this hour?

"Oh," he said. "Hi Grandma."

At the same time, I heard the sound of Mom's car driving back up the road. She sure gave in easy, I thought. But then, from the kitchen, the sound of Martha's broom ceased. "Oh good heavens," she cackled. I raced into the kitchen and pressed my nose into the window, along with Martha's.

"Candy?"

I could barely breathe.

Sean Callahan, in the flesh. He pulled up right behind her, slammed his car door loudly, bowed officiously at the house, then opened Mom's door. She stepped out of her car, blinking like she'd never seen such bright sunshine. Her eyes rose to the Widow's Walk, and I saw her flush.

Nobody likes to think that their mother has desires – or as we kids say, gets horny. But as Mom looked up at the Captain, some kind of dawning realization seemed to spread across her face. Sean reached for her hand and kissed it, eyes focused all the while on the Widow's Walk.

We were mesmerized.


	2. Chapter 2

"Mom hates conflict, relatives who cause conflict, and anything which conflicts with her decision to do whatever she wants. So why's she letting Grandpa walk all over us?" I pinched my thumb with my forefinger, trying not to cry. Trying not to hate our mother.

Jonathan and I huddled under blankets, shivering on the deck of "I'm a Writer." We were safe here, certain Captain Gregg would never leave mom alone with the enemy. It was cold that evening in Schooner Bay harbor, but we were grateful for the chance to smoke pot and trash-talk Sean Callahan without worrying about being overheard by invisible ghosts.

"Sheesh, Candy, she doesn't even have many friends," Jonathan said. "Mom doesn't care what anyone thinks as long as they don't really believe Gull Cottage is really haunted."

"She'd better care about what we think," I said, remembering the stony look on Captain Gregg's face as he materialized in the foyer and removed the phone from Jonathan's hands. I'd expected him to be enraged, to at least shower some good, old-fashioned temper squalls on the insufferable Mr. Callahan. But the Captain merely thanked Grandma for her call and concern then returned the earpiece to its antiquated receiver. At his invisible bidding, the front door swung open and Mom glided in on Mr. Callahan's arm, staring at the bag full of barney as though he really were Captain Gregg. She rubbed her hand tentatively up and down Mr. Callahan's forearm, flirting with the flesh-and-blood wrist emerging from the suit jacket.

Disgusting, I thought. Mom's acting like a 16-year-old high school girl. Anyone could see the challenge in her eyes as she turned and stared, suddenly, at the man who had raised us, the real Captain Gregg.

I expected to fury to radiate from every pore in his ectoplasm but there was only this: calm indifference.

"Sir," the Captain greeted Mr. Callahan politely but firmly. "My home is your home. Please make yourself comfortable while you and Mrs. Muir work out arrangements about the publishing of her next novel. Martha will be right in with some tea."

"Captain?" Mom was caught off-guard as the Captain suavely half-bowed then disappeared into the dust motes hanging in the early morning air at Gull Cottage.

Mom recovered quickly. "Yes, Sean, please do sit down. I'm terribly sorry Captain Gregg can't join us but then, I do remember you weren't exactly fond of our resident ghost the last time you visited back in '68, '69?"

"Actually, Carolyn me dear, he's exactly why I'm here, the reason for my trip from Ireland. Your father thinks the Captain might need some help with your next plot, your next novel. Now, as a successful author in my own right, one with serious publishing connections in Boston and New York, I've agreed to work with you – on his behalf of course – to see . . ."

Right, I thought, as Jonathan handed me the joint.

Grandpa had a plan all right, a plan that made me wish I were nine years old again, too young to understand how things really worked in the world of grownups.

"Do you think he knows?" Jonathan asked softly.

"Knows what, pest?" I wondered whether I'd be this close to Jonathan if we hadn't grown up sharing such an enormous secret.

"Do you think Grandpa knows the Captain can take over other people's bodies?"

A rogue wave surged in, slapping loudly against the dock and causing our considerable craft to rise and fall just enough to unsettle my tentative position on the deck chair. I fell off, coughing and waving marijuana fumes as I landed.

We'd never spoken openly of this before. Ever. Not even acknowledged what we knew to each other. We didn't like to think about Captain Gregg dancing with Mom using Claymore's body. Gross. In our imagination, Captain Gregg didn't need to, and Mom would never let it happen. With the ineloquent logic of children, we just assumed Mom and the Captain never kissed, hugged or held hands together because parents didn't do that in front of children.

We knew, beyond a doubt, what we needed to know, that whatever they shared, as long as they shared it, we would be loved beyond measure.

On those infrequent occasions when we did catch Claymore waltzing with Mom in the parlor, cutting in at high school dances or monopolizing Mom's time at the country club, Jonathan and could tell, just by looking, when it happened, when Claymore stood taller and Mom's eyes shined brighter as her landlord drew her deeper into the dance.

Of course Grandpa didn't know Mom and the Captain could do this.

"What a jerk," I said suddenly. "Grandpa doesn't know, or he wouldn't have sent Sean. He thinks Mom will dump the Captain for a rich writer she can actually touch."

"Do you children always underestimate your mother with such alarming alacrity?"

Like a bolt of lightning, the Captain's voice cracked the peace and stillness of our shipboard retreat, reverberating loudly off the port bow of a neighboring skiff. Jonathan and I sprang to our feet as quickly as our marijuana fog would permit.

"Or that I would knowingly insert my form – such as it is or may be – into such a quisling mortal as Claymore Gregg or any other lesser human being? That I would find it necessary, under any circumstances? Why, your mother is a lady, and the behavior you ascribe to us is unbecoming in both ladies and seamen, such as myself."

The Captain made sure we got the point. Thunder rumbled and the waves roiled in the harbor. Jonathan covered his mouth with his hand, suddenly. Without so much as a glance, Captain Gregg kicked a bucket towards him. Jonathan succumbed gratefully, heaving away until there was nothing left in his young stomach. So much, I thought, for the idea much favored by all us as Schooner Bay High, that marijuana cures seasickness.

I wanted to cry out to Captain Gregg, beg him to save his swagger for Sean Callahan, but I was only 16 and he was my Dad.

To my horror, tears sparkled suddenly in my eyes and I was embarrassed to remind myself so much of my mother.


	3. Chapter 3

The Beach Boys thrummed on my little stereo. An oldie, but we can't pick up any good radio stations here in Schooner Bay. I sang along – I knew those lyrics well. Then it hit me. I jacked up the volume as loud as possible, hoping Mom would overhear. She'd hummed this little ditty endlessly the first two years we lived in Gull Cottage. How could I ever forget?

"God only knows what I'd be without you…"

Looking back, it seems strange that someone so hung up on Frank Sinatra, who'd ignored The Beatles entirely and declared the Jackson 5 a fad, even knew this song existed. "If you should ever leave me/Though life would still go on believe me/The world could show nothing to me/So what good would living do me," I belted out, knowing she liked to hear me sing. I hoped the lyrics might jolt her out of weeklong stupidity. Sean Callahan was getting very old, and Jonathan and I were still smarting from the Captain's little lying lecture about his inability to invade Claymore's body just so he could dance with Mom to suit their purposes. What were we supposed to do – wait around without a fight for Sean to suit Grandpa's purposes? Mom seemed smitten and Captain Gregg was just being downright weird.

"God only knows…"

I was beginning to enjoy the sound of my voice a little too much when Mom appeared in my doorway, jolting me out of my rock star fantasy.

"Turn that down!" she snapped. There were shadows under her eyes. For a moment, I wondered whether this was a clichéd parent response to loud music or exactly what I'd hoped for. Honestly, I don't know what got into me. Maybe my fingers just twitched as she startled me. I turned the music up even louder, and she flushed, headed for my pricey little sound system.

"No!" I yelled, sticking my hand in front of the off switch. "You need to hear this song and remember why it's the only rock ditty in the history of the entire universe that you've ever liked!" Mom's never, ever laid a finger on Jonathan, or me but for a second I thought tonight might be a first. I hated her. I hoped she would smack me. What was she even thinking of, working with Grandpa's pawn, ignoring the Captain, all over a stupid book?

"You've even turned Captain Gregg into a liar!"

Mom was stunned. She sank onto my twin bed, which fortunately happened to be tidily made instead of covered in cotton balls smeared with mascara. I thought I'd won, catching her off-guard with an inarguable truth so profound it might send the fake physical manifestation of Daniel Gregg scampering back to my evil grandfather.

"I beg your pardon?" Her eyes widened. It was a whisper, a statement and, a question.

I couldn't wait.

"The Captain spied on me and Jonathan out on the boat, then yelled at us for talking about how he can take over Claymore's body when he wants to, and dance with you. We know he does. We've seen it. But we never talked about it to anyone else or even each other."

My rant had just begun. I stopped, perversely pleased to see all the color drain from her face. Then I panicked. My Mom is everything to me. I didn't mean to hurt her, just make her see the truth – but what was the truth? Too late, I realized there is more to true love than even a 17-year-old can understand no matter how many boys she's kissed.

"Go on," Mom said quietly.

"Don't you see, Mom?" I began earnestly. " The Captain will do anything for you. We don't care what you guys do when you think nobody's watching. We even hope you really can hold hands. But the Captain got mad when he heard us talking about him using Claymore to dance with you, to really touch you. He said that would never happen. Ever. He lied to protect your honor. But if he can just move into somebody's body, why doesn't he just take over stupid Sean? He doesn't need to lie to Jonathan and me. We want you guys to be happy. Mr. Callahan's not disgusting like Claymore and he even looks just like Captain Gregg. Nobody will know the difference and everyone will be happy. Even Grandpa."

To my devious teenage mind, this made perfect sense, although it did require a certain squeamish acknowledgement that my mother might enjoy more than Madeira with Captain Gregg. Proud of my nobility, I waited for her response. But move didn't move. She stopped breathing. The cheery DJ's voice faded. I realized even the tide and the gulls were silenced. The only noise was the gasp coming out of my mouth. Most kids would be scared, but I was impressed. Could the Captain do this, too? Stop time?

"Lass." I felt his hand on my shoulder. It was warm. Definitely not ghostly. Confused, I mentally ticked off the possibilities. No, couldn't be the Captain in Sean's body. Sean is human and humans can't stop time. That left one alternative –

"You really can touch!" I turned and hugged him like I was still a ten-year-old child. He smelled wonderful, of cigar smoke, fresh air, the sea - and mom's perfume? His chest rose then fell as I clung to him, desperately relieved. Mom wouldn't leave him for a writer who could touch. Nor would she ask the Captain the unthinkable. She was just blowing smoke up Grandpa's wrinkled old butt. "Thanks for catching her in a blink," I told the Captain at last. "I don't know if I could stand this if she was actually staring at me." Mom seemed so fragile, sitting there. Vulnerable, actually.

"We don't have much time, Candy. Even my considerable powers are limited by laws of nature."

The Captain cupped my chin, turning my face to his. He stared at me intently. I wondered how on earth Mom had ever stood up to him all those years ago. It was all I could do not to look away first. It was scary the way Captain Gregg could turn a single second into eternity with his burning blue eyes.

"You have every right to your opinion, my child," he said at last. "Even if it's not what your mother wishes. This is a very natural and essential part of growing up, questioning one's parents, if you will allow me to flatter myself just this once. I would do nothing to stand in the way of the spunk you come by so very naturally –"

"You're scaring me, Captain, I'm not as brave as you think. First you stop time, which is really cool, but you've never done that before – then you let me know you can really touch." My voice wavered. Tears could not be far behind. "Why are you doing this? Why don't you just get rid of Mr. Callahan? Does Jonathan know you are just like us, solid?"

"You and Mom are scaring me."

The Captain pulled me close, and then kissed the top of my head before releasing me.

"You are as brave as your Mother, and everything I could ever have hoped for in a daughter." He wasn't even listening to me.

"What do you want me to do?" I pressed.

"God only knows what I'd be without your Mother," he said softly, tucking my straight blonde hair behind my ear. "I can't hold the moment much longer. Perhaps we can share many more talks like these, in ordinary time. For now, I want you to simply trust there are things beyond your understanding, and to believe in your Mother."

He stopped time just for this?

"Turn around and face me, Candace Muir." It was Mom. The Captain was gone, the radio blaring, the tide raging. With relief, I noted the stupid DJ had switched to Elton John. If my hair hadn't been still tucked securely behind my ear, when my hand absently rose to free it – I would swear I'd just sneaked one too many beers behind the football bleachers last night. But the Captain had been there all right, and Mom didn't know. What was the Captain trying to tell me, the least-important player in the little drama now unfolding in Gull Cottage like the pages of a blasted book?

Then it hit me, with all of the subtlety of gull splatter on the porch. Captain Gregg didn't have a beard a second ago. Sean Callahan doesn't have one. Captain Gregg wasn't trying to tell me anything. He was asking me for something. He didn't stop time because he wanted me to know – he stopped time because he wanted me to understand, and he wasn't willing to lie in order to earn my acceptance. He was asking my permission.

"Mom," I said, turning to face her finally. "I'm sorry. This really isn't any of my business. Forget Grandpa. I didn't mean to act like him. You need to do what's right for you. Me 'n Jonathan understand."

"Completely."


	4. Chapter 4

The fish rots from the head," Jonathan said morosely. He passed me his smoke.

"What's that supposed to mean - the cigarette burns from the end?" I asked.

We sat at the far end of the dock frequented by high school kids.

Most days Sean Callahan and Mom seemed legitimately occupied with their book. They did take walks together, but we never caught them doing anything interesting, like stopping and shifting from foot to foot, gazing at each other like Mom and the Captain used to. The "look," as us kids called it, had morphed into the "stare" in just two weeks. Like Mom and the Captain were fighting about something they would never agree on.

"Decaying fish heads means there's only one captain on a ship, and if the captain doesn't do his job right, the crew gets lazy, and morale gets really bad. The whole ship stinks," Jonathan said. He chewed on his T-shirt's collar, as he'd done at our real dad's funeral. My brother didn't want to cry. "Sean Callahan's gonna pull a fast one on us because the Captain's letting things get out of line."

"Since when are you an expert on fish guts?" I exploded, finally. "I know a lot more about women than you do, and Captain Gregg's not that stupid."

"Candy, do not belittle your brother's literal interpretation of what is in effect a 15th-century Turkish metaphor not directly related to piscine anatomy. My dear, this charmin' cliché rather piquantly or even obliquely, as we writers might opine, has everything to do with the rather abysmal state of affairs at Gull Cottage."

Why do we so consistently underestimate Captain Gregg?

He appeared out of nowhere, once again, materializing then standing before us as we slowly - inconspicuously, I prayed - exhaled incriminating tendrils of smoke out of our nostrils.

"You're not Captain Gregg! Shove off, man!" My brother scrambled to his feet with awkward dignity.

How could Jonathan tell so fast? I thought I'd heard the Captain's clipped, authoritative vowels. Was there more of a slippery Irish cadence or a lilt Jonathan somehow detected? "Charmin'" - that was it. Captain Gregg would never call anything but Mom charmin"g". I leaned closer for a better look. This Captain Gregg didn't have a beard - neither did the real ghost when he appeared in my bedroom - and his clothes were the same unimaginative naval blue Mom so disliked after all these years.

Was Sean Callahan dressing like Captain Gregg – who was beginning to look disturbingly like Sean Callahan - or was Jonathan starting to lose it?

"You heard the lad. Now shove off you barnacle's ass." The voice came from behind us. I could feel the wrath emanating from his spiritual emanations, as Madame Tibaldi gloriously described them. Jonathan couldn't contain himself. "Captain Gregg," he said, turning, his voice cracking. "I knew it! Now might be the time for a real keelhauling."

"Aaah, but he's not captain of the ship you're worried about, me lad." Sean Callahan shot back. "He might well order 20 lashes for me poor back, but your lovely mother is the captain on this voyage of love. It's her heart be steering the helm now, not your so-called rotting Captain's hand, such as it may or might not be. Now me hand, on the other hand -"

I've seen Captain Gregg throw Claymore out of the house plenty of times, but he always does it invisibly. Not tonight. Captain Gregg wasted no time smashing his strong right hook straight into Sean Callahan's leering face. This was no invisible, gentlemanly shove, no warning shot over the bow. We saw it all, and there was blood, and lots of it.

I will relish that memory for as long as I live - hopefully for all eternity if Captain Greg's existence is any indication of things to come. Who could forget the glorious look of utter fury on his face? The Captain was definitely back on the bridge, Carolyn Muir's opinions on the matter be damned. For the first time since he stopped time, I felt the vague stirrings of hope as Daniel Gregg did everything but keelhaul the bloody bastard.

Sean Callahan tried, of course, to fight back, but as he already had impugned the Captain's incorporeal abilities, Captain Gregg showed little mercy. Definitely a fair fight, because Sean Callahan could see everything he had coming to him, coming right at him.

"Jeez, Candy, now I know why nobody ever mutinies," Jonathan said, eyes wider than I'd ever seen them. "This is better than a movie."

When it ended, seconds later, the Captain's face was red, his hair askew. Sean Callahan lay on the dock, head hanging over the water, vomiting into the bay the remnants of what we fervently hoped would be his last-ever home-cooked Martha meal.

The Captain removed his jacket, rubbed his knuckles and hoisted the sleeves of his turtleneck above his elbows. What the hell?

Captain Gregg actually appeared to sweat, to breathe heavily - things we'd never seen him do before. Was this for appearance's sake? Or could he really be this corporeal when the mood suited him? Sweating after vigorous exertion was not something any of the ghosts or vampires on Dark Shadows did.

How had I been so stupid?

If Captain Gregg could become this earthly, why was Mom making our lives so miserable, dallying with the idiot from Ireland for a book she could write herself? Surely she would never choose Sean Callahan over the Captain, even if the Captain couldn't touch most of the time. And if the Captain could touch even when he didn't stop time, what was all this about? What weren't they telling us?

My glance shifted from the Captain to Jonathan. The first mate beamed broadly. The first mate is dense.

"Let's go home, Captain," Jonathan chirruped, his posture straightening and ridiculously thin chest puffing proudly. I could tell he wanted to shake the Captain's hand, maybe even venture a bear hug given another three seconds, but Mom had other plans.

"Yoo-hoo, kids, your mother's looking for you -" Claymore. The man Mom mollycoddled for the odd occasions like now, when she needed a convenient surrogate who knew about her ghost.

Too afraid to get out of his car, Claymore honked once and waved for us to join him. He looked as green as the barfing Sean Callahan. Had Claymore witnessed the whole shebang? Did he also know the Captain could look and act pretty human when he wanted to? For that matter, did he even know Captain Gregg could take over his quisling mortal coils just to touch Mom?

Jonathan and I had gladly entered into the Captain conspiracy-of-silence when we moved to Schooner Bay. We gave up a lot because we loved the Captain a lot. We were okay with a father-figure who couldn't hug or play tackle football because he was a ghost. Jonathan and I endured endless jokes about spirits and, in later years, snide comments about Mom's conspicuous lack of a love life (or complete lack of morals, a view espoused by the unfortunate many who'd had real run-ins with the Captain over the last 50-odd years).

My head was really beginning to hurt. Forget Sean Callahan. Had Jonathan and me been living a lie since 1968? What took me so long to figure it all out?

Sure, there are worse things than wondering if your Mom is going to throw her ghostly lover over for a real mortal look-alike. At the top of the list is figuring out she's been lying and the man you thought was your father is letting her get away with it.

"You're a liar, too, Captain Dad," I cried, overwhelmed.

Jonathan gaped. Good thing he's not quick on his feet. Any innocent protestations would have made me cry.

The sound of my voice both frightened and surprised me. Captain Gregg looked at me like I was crazy. Unsure of what came next, I turned and hightailed for shore, straight for Penelope's house. What was Mom going to do, call her parents and insist I come home right away?

"Hello, I've lied to my daughter once too often about the ghost everyone suspects I've shacked up with anyway. Could you please send her home?"

Ha! Penelope wasn't home right now anyway but her older brother would drive me straight over to the bonfire up the public beach, where she and 15 of my closest personal friends were drinking beer.

I hated them all. The only person who wasn't a liar was the person with nothing to lose and everything to gain – that rogue, Sean Callahan.


	5. Chapter 5

"Candy Muir! You look like you've just seen a ghoooooooooooooooost!"

They were already drunk, my wonderful friends. I loped angrily into the ring of light curling protectively around their illicit beach bonfire, and sat myself squarely on an unattended towel. I didn't bother to get madder than I already was. I've heard that line since 1968. For a moment, I thought about blurting out the damned truth.

Someone handed me a beer. "The better to brood by," a voice joked from somewhere.

"Perhaps she has." I hadn't realized he was here. Mark Helmore. My lovely one-time suitor albeit now hippie-ish best friend. His lovely accent jolted me out of my reverie. He stood, dusted the sand off his butt and offered me – or should I say proffered, as the Captain taught Jonathan to say – his arm. This was too much for Stephen Kirk, my old boyfriend.

"Man, she probably saw the creep who looks like the ghost everyone thinks her mom's been – "

"Shut up, asshole."

Jonathan stood just outside the firelight, the flames flickering under his chin, the eerie orange light giving him a dimensionality, a character I'd somehow missed all of these years. He looks like such a wimp in the daylight, but all of a sudden I realized he's a good foot taller than any of us and not as gangly either. The hair rose on my arms as I recognized the stance. Jonathan stood, fists planted firmly in his hips, feet squarely apart in the sand.

"Mark, please remove my sister from the perimeter while I beat the crap out of anyone wishes to diminish my mother's reputation or my sister's."

Good one, Jonathan. Captain Gregg would be proud. Except for the crap part. Or, maybe not. Who knew what the Captain said when females weren't around?

Mark pulled my arm. "Come on, then. Leave Stephen and the rest of the cretins to Jonathan. I have a feeling he's more than a match for that lot." He looked at me, and I swooned like I was 10 years old again. His big, blue eyes were wide, and unblinking. Innocent.

"Since when did Jonathan grow up?" The wind picked up off the Atlantic. Mark removed his windbreaker and draped it over my shoulders. "Since Sean Callahan arrived to lay claim to your mother's affections," he replied reasonably.

We walked down the windswept, dark beach. Gradually, I calmed down. The stars were beautiful, and Mark squeezed my arm as we picked our way carefully across the rocks, pebbles and driftwood that were the Atlantic's unending assault on the Maine coastline.

"Candy Muir. Wait here."

Mark strode purposefully over to a series of large boulders and retrieved one of the many blankets we teens have hidden over the years for a variety of nighttime assignations. It was carefully wrapped in dry cleaning plastic. This had to be one of Mark's. Nobody else cared enough about cold, wet sand. Nobody else was as considerate.

He seated me on the blanket. We cuddled together, shivering slightly in the damp breeze. Mark wrapped another blanket around our shoulders.

"What are they saying behind my back, Mark?"

"The usual ghost nonsense. You know, Candy, they really do believe. Your Captain Gregg ghost has been the topic of gossip here since before my great-grandmother married a Helmore at the Congregationalist Church on First Street. "

This wasn't news to me, but it was the first time Mark had ever mentioned the Captain's name to me or alluded to any town scuttlebutt. Then –

"You know, Candy, my Gran's got the second sight. When she found out I suddenly stopped liking Penny and had an enormous crush on you all those years ago she rang up your Mom. She was mad. I really couldn't hear everything but she told your Mom that if Captain Gregg ever meddled with us again, she'd personally call the Boston Society for the Study of Paranormal New England Phenomena. She told your Mom she knew for a fact he'd been in our house and she'd exorcise him if he ever -"

"You mean he made you like me?" It was out. I said it before I thought it. Before I could stop it. I betrayed my Mom and Captain Gregg. Over something the Captain thought was a big favor. Yet I was mortified. All these years, and Mark had never said anything. Just smiled bravely every time I looked his way.

"Probably. But that's not why I'm telling you this. You were adorable, any way, in your own pre-pubescent fashion –"

I elbowed him in the ribs. For a moment, I forgot the fight with Sean Callahan, forgot the fact my Mom and her beloved ghost were the world's biggest liars. All I could think was that Mark Helmore was the most special human being in the world and he was sticking up for me after everything the Captain had done to him. What kind of a person keeps a secret like that? Doesn't get mad at the girl with the meddling ghost?

"Candy, I have it, too. The second sight."

I didn't think anything could surprise me after the last two weeks.

"And your secret's safe with me," Mark continued, as reasonably as if we were talking about answers to next week's physics exam. "The only thing crazier than the girl who lives with a ghost is the boy who claims he's seen the ghost who haunts her house."

Mark actually looked apologetic. He smiled wanly at me then stared at the majestic Atlantic the way some kids watch TV. With intensity. He linked his hand in mine. I knew it wasn't anything sexual. Mark wasn't like that.

"Presuming you're right," I stammered in one last gasp of family loyalty.

"Give it up, Can. I'm trying to help you here. I won't think you're strange if you don't think I'm weird. We both have magnificent, terrible secrets to keep. I can't speak for you, but I'm very relieved to be sharing mine."

"It doesn't help me." He pulled his arm around my neck and I rested my head in the crook of his shoulder as I began to cry. "Except now I have someone to talk to about whatever the fuck is or isn't going on up at Gull Cottage. I hate my mother. I hate Captain Gregg. I hate my life."

"You really don't know, do you?" Mark lay down on the blanket and we faced each other, curled in the blanket. I was very tired all of a sudden. Did I really want to know?

"Candy, it isn't like your Mom's a human being and Captain Gregg's a ghost. What you think of as the spirit world is interwoven with our world. They aren't just two different things. Life is energy, Gran says. Ghosts and people live in worlds that can overlap, especially when you have a soul, or whatever you call your Captain, that isn't ready to move on. Our world and the spirit world are intertwined. What happens in one affects the other."

He was silent, finally. We stared at each other.

"They lied to protect you."


	6. Chapter 6

I'd seen Mark Helmore's "Gran" over the years, but never up close. The old woman kept to herself, her herb garden, her goats and her research on coastline erosion. Yes, she had a doctorate in something important from the University of Maine, but to us kids she was just another Schooner Bay eccentric. Gran had long white hair, which she wore in a braid straight down her back like an Indian. Propriety was never her thing, and her clothes hinted at unconventionality neither admired nor appreciated in town. "A free-thinking liberal," Deke sniffed one day as she sauntered by in blue jeans and a tie-dyed top, flip-flops sassily announcing her passing. There were even rumors she'd been a Communist once, in the early days of her marriage, when she and Mark's deceased grandfather lived in New York. "A hippie," the old man concluded.

Wish I could say I found this interesting, but she was just another washed-out grown up when Mark and I sidled into her kitchen the next morning. "I don't eat breakfast," she announced. "But you are more than welcome to coffee as long as chicory isn't too strong for you." I smiled, uneasily, and shook my head. "No thanks, Ms. Helmore. Martha already fed us a big batch of blueberry pancakes."

"Funny, Candy, but your mother's been calling everyone in town this morning, looking for you. Fortunately, Mrs. Hassenhammer is under the illusion you stayed with Penny last night, instead of sleeping on the beach with Mark. It's okay, Mark. You did the right thing."

Mark shot his grandmother a grateful look. My jaw dropped. The boy didn't exaggerate.

"You know?"

"Everyone in town knows your mother's been running around with a man who looks suspiciously like Daniel Gregg's portrait," Gran sniffed, answering the real question instead. "You don't need ESP, just a nuanced understanding of the teenaged mind to guess what's bothering you."

ESP helps, I thought.

"Don't worry, Candy, she's not going to tell your mother, are you Gran?" Mark ruffled my hair affectionately and climbed onto the kitchen stool. "You could serve us lunch."

An hour later, Mark was fast asleep on the couch. Gran made me call Martha, to tell her I'd be home soon, not to worry even though my Mom was ready to hop in the car and drag me back to Gull Cottage. I could tell Mom was listening in on the upstairs line. "I'm over at Mark's, talking to his Grandma." I couldn't resist. That would keep the Captain at bay and mom skulking around the house instead of embarrassing me in front of everyone.

"I'm a widow, too, Candy."

This seemed pretty immaterial since Gran was so old, but I nodded politely nonetheless, wondering if she was going to try and make Mom look good or something, instead of plain-old pigheaded. I was still mad about last night, and definitely not in the mood to hear some kind of sympathy crap about how hard Mom worked.

"I actually met your Captain Gregg long before your family moved here." Stunned. I can't describe it any other way. I couldn't move. Blood rushed to my head, my heart pounding."

"And no, it wasn't like that at all," Gran said finally, reaching for a clove cigarette. Reasonably, she offered me one and I gratefully accepted. I don't know what I would have done if it had been like that. "He tried to bully me off his beach once he figured I could see him. He was quite rude, actually, telling me to shove off and stare at dead fish under the blasted, new-fangled microscope. More or less, that's what he said." She watched me closely, and smiled, not unkindly. "Of course, you can fill in the blanks about what he really said, rotting fish heads and all. Claymore was just a little boy then, so I guess he was practicing on me!"

Gran poured herself another cup of coffee and topped it off with goat's milk. I gagged, slightly, at its earthy, unpasteurized odor.

"Candace, my dear," she said gently. "Please listen carefully. Knowing my lovely, lovely grandson as well as I do, I am certain he did his best to explain how the spirit and mortal worlds overlap, that what happens here affects the other side, and vice versa. That's all true, and it probably explains why – as I'm sure you are wondering, even given recent circumstances – your Captain is still here, with us. Why it seems like he can touch sometimes, and why others he's as spectral and even as clueless as the headless horseman."

"So where's the truth in all of the lies they're telling?" I asked impatiently. "Why is the Captain putting up with Sean Callahan? What's up with the changing beards? Why can he touch people sometimes, except when he wants to touch Mom and then he has to use Claymore –"

Gran put her fingers to my lips. I thought I would explode. Gran stared out the window, and a strange look came over her face before she turned to face me again.

"I may see or sense the truth and spirits, but I am not at liberty to tell everything I know, Candace. Mark is correct, but for the wrong reasons. Someone is lying to protect you, Candy, but not from the spirit world or even where it overlaps with ours. The truth is the truth, on either side of the veil, but it's never simple or black and white."

"Like love, Mrs. Helmore?" Mom. That explained the strange look on Gran's face. Mom stood in the doorframe. There was no anger there. Just a tear at the corner of her eye. Gran opened her arms, and like that Mom was there, crying on the old woman's shoulder.

"She'll understand, dear," Gran said quietly, finally, pushing Mom gently towards me. "You've raised a fine girl. A lovely child."

Mom slid her arm around my waist and like that, we were out the door and headed down the garden path to Mom's convertible. Mutely, she handed me the keys before sinking into the leather luxury of the passenger-side seat. All of a sudden she seemed small, and vulnerable, and I felt a strange impulse to protect her from Sean Callahan and even Captain Gregg.

I drove us away from Schooner Bay and back up the steep hill that led to our seaside home. For the first time, I realized how isolated Mom and Captain Gregg really were up here, how much Mom had willingly forsaken to live with a spirit on a rock at the edge of an endless, unforgiving sea.

I turned on the clicker, to signal to the gulls and no one else in particular as I prepared to make the final left turn onto Gregg Road.

"Stop," Mom commanded. I hit the brake too hard with my foot and we came to an awkward halt. The car settled uneasily in the gravel. I yanked the hand brake into place, and shifted into park. The gulls swirled noisily overhead, and I could even hear the gas swishing in tank.

Mom turned to face me, her eyes brimming with tears. She caressed my cheek before pulling me to her for one last hug. "Here, Candy," she whispered into my ear, "is where the trouble began. This is where Sean attacked me."


	7. Chapter 7

I looked around. No Captain. Not even a thunder-rumble.

"Yes, of course he knows," Mom said, stopping to light a cigarette, inhaling deeply then pursing her lips as she exhaled slowly, thoughtfully, resignedly. "Let's get out of the car and walk, Candy. Let it block the road, I don't care. I've advised Daniel to stay away. This needs to come from your mother. Mark's Gran is entirely right about that. You know, we've been friends for years. Every morning after I dropped you kids off at the elementary school, she and I would have long talks over herbal tea in her kitchen."

"What? How come you didn't tell me?"

Mom stopped, tossed her half-smoked stub onto the wet sand, and jutted her hands into the deep pockets of her pea jacket. "She was the only person I could talk to after what happened all those years ago. The only one who understands and accepts the way things are. I can't talk to Martha about these things. I had to have someone I could talk to. About –" she hesitated "- everything."

We walked silently around the scraggly pines and around the rocky bend in the shoreline, where the wide beach dwindled abruptly to a sliver. For some reason, I found each grain on the sand fascinating, my eyes and mind seeking any available distraction. Mom reached behind a tree and pulled out a blanket, hanging onto the pine's thin, scaly trunk for support.

"Yes, I know my dear, what goes on 'down here' when we grown ups are 'up there.' I was 16 once too, you know. And I do find it rather convenient, having this little luxury available. This is my blanket, actually. I've spent many a night down here, talking to Daniel."

I clung to the novelty of hearing her refer to the Captain as Daniel, as if that singular admission of intimacy might stop the speeding past threatening to run me over, tumbling me into a future on a road I didn't want to travel.

Mom rested her hand on the back of my shoulder.

"What I'm about to tell you is something no child should hear from her mother, but I think I owe you an explanation. When I'm dead and long-gone, I don't want you to look back at these last few weeks and have any doubt about the Captain's integrity."

I blanched.

"We lied to protect you."

The Atlantic stopped roaring. The gulls seized shrieking. Mom kept talking.

"You were just a little girl then, but I think you remember when Sean Callahan first visited Gull Cottage. We were all excited at first. He looked so much like Captain Gregg. And he was fun in his own right. He played with you kids, flirted charmingly with me, and made Daniel insanely jealous. And that was sweet, actually, Daniel's faux wrath was touching and annoying, all at the same time. "

She smiled, wiped a tear from her eye, and pulled my face to hers so it was impossible to look away from the mother I thought I knew.

"Then Sean left, with a wink, and drove off jauntily in his sporty little car," Mom whispered. "And I went upstairs, to talk to the Captain. We had a pleasant, teasing little conversation until I pressed him as to why he didn't just take over Sean's body just so he could kiss me once. I know you know about Claymore. This was just two weeks after the Centennial Ball, where the Captain waltzed with me for the first time. The night Sean spent in the trailer, I lay awake, hoping against hope to hear a footstep on the stairs, fantasizing the fearless ghost of Gull Cottage would finally come to me in more than just dreams."

"I don't need to know, Mom! Stop it. Don't tell me any more. I trust the Captain, I love him, I would never think anything bad about him or you –"

But Mom, ordinarily so responsive to anything I had to say, continued as though I'd said nothing at all.

"The Captain and I had an enormous row. I was so in love with Daniel, so besotted yet so afraid of falling in love with a man I could never touch. I can't remember what we said to each other, I wish I could but that's all I remember. The last thing I think I said before flouncing out of our room was, 'Well, call him back, then, and we'll see how much of your talk is just that.'"

She shivered in the light breeze. Mom was never warm.

"Then I hopped in the station wagon and drove straight down to where we parked the car just now. There he was. Leaning against the convertible looking just like he was expecting me. Daniel never looked so handsome. I felt like the luckiest woman alive. I didn't even care we both were using another person for our own pleasure.

"I got out of the car and ran right into his arms. Of course he kissed me right away. I proverbially melted in his arms. Then his hand shot straight up under my blouse. He grabbed me by the breast. It hurt. I knew right away he wasn't the Captain. I pulled away, stunned. Sean laughed and said he thought I wanted him because I looked like the creepy ghost, and he'd be happy to oblige me in ways Daniel Gregg hadn't even thought of."

Mom could barely talk. I reacted automatically, at first, tightening my arms around her, smoothing hair on the back of her head like I was the grownup and she the child. In that instant, I knew how this was going to play out – at least, up until the point the blasted rogue showed up to ruin our lives several weeks ago. Sean attacked Mom then ran away and drove off. Mom returned home and never told the Captain because she was afraid he'd kill Sean if he found out. It all made sense. I wondered at the commonsense of our gym teacher, Miss Stone, who warned us that girls always blame themselves when bad things happen with boys. Mom thought she was responsible for both her actions, guilty because she'd mistaken Sean for the Captain and afraid Sean would die because of what she did.

"You take control by blaming yourselves," Miss Stone told us, leaning forward with sincerity heretofore unseen during a sex-ed talk. "That's how you think you had power, only you didn't."

So I'd have to kill Sean for her. For everything he'd done to my family. Push him off a cliff; tell Grandpa he'd raped my mother. Anything but let Captain Gregg discover the love of his life was attacked by someone who just had to be at least peripherally related to him. It would destroy him, ghost or not. And then Mom would die eventually and they both would haunt Gull Cottage instead of vanishing into the light after kissing me and Jonathan good-bye.

Did I just write that? That I wanted my Mommy to kiss me goodbye after she died?

"Enough, child."

It was Captain Gregg. Worshipping Mom was his strong suit, not listening to anything she had to say.

He gently pulled me away from her, and into Jonathan's arms. I was too upset to be disgusted at the thought Jonathan would have to virtually carry me back to the car. He held me awkwardly, arm around my waist, letting me lean all 120 pounds into his wiry frame. Miraculously, he said nothing stupid.

I looked back, but Mom and the Captain had vanished, like they both were ghosts.


	8. Chapter 8

My cigarette tasted suspiciously like the kind of tar they use to fix hulls.

"I wonder if Captain Gregg is messing with us," Jonathan said. "Making Marlboros taste like pitch."

"They ought to taste bad," Martha scowled as she joined us on the porch to light her own smoke. "They make you smell like an ashtray, too. " I shrugged wordlessly. I know what she was doing. She wanted me to call her a silly hypocrite, a spy, anything to dispel the gloom that had settled over each of us, over Gull Cottage. When I finally glanced at her, she nodded her head slowly and winked reassuringly. At least one adult was still normal, cliché, cancer sticks and all.

Martha inhaled then swirled the smoke languidly in her mouth. Two seconds later, as the light of her cigarette faded and the smoke curled lazily out of her mouth, dissipating into the inky blackness of the front yard, she stunned us with this:

"I suppose you kids are tired of the phrase, 'we lied to protect you?'"

"Does Captain Gregg know you're going to tell us something?" Jonathan blurted. "If you're going to call them liars, and everything, I mean –"

Martha gave him the look. The focused stare. I kicked Jonathan in the shin, and he sat back down without a sound, although he did wrap his arms angrily in front of him.

"Child, I'm not about to ruin your hero. But I don't think Sean Callahan is worth another wasted meal. Someone's got to pick up the appetites around here, and I doubt we'll see or hear from your mother until she and the Captain decide to sail on back from wherever they've weighed anchor."

"Go on, Martha," I asked as steadily as I could. If Martha got busy chiding Jonathan to eat, we'd never hear the truth.

"You won't appreciate this until you're much older, but sometimes the glory of a small town is nobody can keep a secret unless a secret really needs to be kept. To protect someone in the town." She took another drag on the cigarette then snuffed it out in the huge glass ashtray we hid under the planter.

"Captain Gregg, for example. He's been the topic on wagging tongues since the 1880s. Gull Cottage isn't as isolated as you think. When we arrived back in '68, the thought of your pretty little mother residing with a cantankerous poltergeist was too much for biddies – and you know who I'm talking about. But Mainers don't talk to outsiders. Not to newspaper reporters or tourists. Not even to your grandparents when they donated all that money to the high school."

"Sure, there was a lot of smirking when your mother showed up at the Yacht Club with the real Sean Callahan. After all, everyone just knew the old goat had to have procreated in at least a few places around the world – now Jonathan, sit back down – and in 1968 Mr. Callahan looked the closest like a cousin Claymore was ever likely to see."

Martha stood and touched our faces before drawing us towards her. I tried to hold back, but the warmth and comfort of Martha's cushioned chest made everything okay. It gave us strength, and I had a good idea we were about to need a little fortitude to hear the truth.

"When she shot out of the house just after Mr. Callahan left all those years ago, I knew something was up but I didn't know about Captain Gregg back then. She ran out the doors just like that, in a wink. I really didn't give it much thought – all I know is that when she came back several hours later, she was a very changed person. The strangest look on her face. Happy, but bittersweet. Sad, but glad. She was a mess. She scurried up the stairs and took a long, hot bath."

"Now I know, Candy, that your mother tried to share at least part of what happened that day. She told me she would, but I doubt she managed to get it all out, poor dear. There are just some things a mother can't tell her own daughter. Or a father, his own son."

Jonathan brightened, Martha nodded, and three cigarettes lit simultaneously,

"None of it made any sense to me until Sean Callahan came back the other day. In the flesh, I thought! This will be interesting! Your mother hasn't been with a living man since your father died. Well, I'll tell you that is not normal. Don't look so shocked, Candy."

"Martha, don't tell Jonathan!" I exploded. "You're wrong. He'll tell the Captain and Mom doesn't want the Captain to know – and she blames herself - "

"He knew exactly what happened that day," Martha was too calm. "Do you think a ghost can't hear the cries of a loved one, no matter how distant? Your mother said he was down there, in a flash. Only he couldn't lay a finger on Sean. He doesn't have a body. So he used Sean's to stop Sean. And that's where things got complicated."

Jonathan's jaw dropped, like he was a little kid.

"That's disgusting!" I snapped before I knew what I was saying. "He wouldn't."

"They couldn't. They didn't. And they did."


End file.
